Dear Christian,
I've never heard of any reliable metric analysis for distinguishing Equus
ferus from Equus caballus. For one thing, E caballus is so very variable.
And, we really don't know if E ferus was one or many different species or
subspecies. The mandible also changes shape as the animal ages and the
teeth become shorter.
Bit wear might be helpful, but sometimes abnormal wear can look like bit
wear. Moreover, not only is bit wear itself highly variable, but also many,
if not most horses do not have it, even when they are used with a bit.
I don't think that you can say much about a mandible out of context.
regards,
Marsha Levine
On Jul 21 2005, Christian Küchelmann wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> can anyone give me criteria for the discrimination of Equus ferus and
> Equus caballus on the mandibula?
>
> The find is a complete horse mandibula dredged out the gravel bed of the
> river Aller in Lower Saxony, Germany. No further contextual information
> available.
>
> Regards
>
> Christian
>
--
Dr. Marsha Levine, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, England
phone: +44 (0)1223-339347 / fax: +44 (0)1223-339285
http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~ml12/
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